Newsvine Next Level

Human caused global warming is a scientific fact. Climate scientists are in broad agreement that carbon dioxide is a significant climate forcing agent and that human activities have increased CO2 levels dramatically since the industrial revolution. While personal efforts are laudable and certainly have the capacity to shift the market, widespread consensus or government intervention will be necessary to make "green" wide-spread enough to work. Global warming of just a few degrees has the potential to cause significant economic damage and without changes by both individuals and companies, the resulting climate shifts will have serious consequences for the United States and the world.

Dramatic efforts are needed today - either through personal, technological, or governmental means - to curb the growth of worldwide carbon emissions. The science on this topic is clear and incontrovertible.

[Note, if this is some kind of live-format debate participation may not happen for me. It's difficult for me to be sure of my time right now]

Thanks Calvin, I thouht we were posting here first, then moving to the other thread. I read Killfile's post and thought we went here first!

We definitely need to learn to live more gently and use less resources living our daily lives. If each individual uses fewer resources with minimal or no sacrifice those resources can be available for others and/or not consumed as quickly. Even if we set aside global warming for just a moment there are things each of us can do that will reduce deforestation, fresh water diversion, soil compaction from agriculture, decrease chemicals in fresh water, etc, etc. These actions will allow our natural world to handle our impact more easily. Coming back to global warming then, we find that our actions can and will reduce emissions, demand for energy and slow a progression to a climate state that puts pressure on our society that we don't have answers for. We shouldn't need to be forced to do this, but unless people are educated they won't do it because they are free to choose otherwise. Personal responsibility is the best way, but not the only way. When people seek out that education they will find that the need to act is there, the benefits of acting are real and that as a society we should.

It is very unfortunate that all of this has become so politicized, because the science is really quite fascinating, and the concern is very likely real. It is impossible to put an exact probability on something so complicated. And then we need to decide, given the probability, is that enough to take action? That is not a scientific question, but a societal one. It depends on the cost of taking action vs the cost of NOT taking action.

It is hard to discuss scientific uncertainty in a heated debate, because any perceived uncertainty is pounced on to insinuate that the whole thing is a lie. Because uncertainty is the foundation of science, it is bad when scientists are tempted to downplay the uncertainty for advocacy reasons. But it is also bad when people exaggerate the uncertainty for advocacy reasons as well.

Conservation efforts on a personal level are effective, but not enough. They do not address the larger systemic issues in our energy system. Many of these will have to be addressed through legislation. The legislation can create financial incentives, so things are not being forced, but in the end, we have to make sure it happens.

I believe that humans are accelerating natural processes through pollution, wasteful practices, and a dangerous refusal to accept what mainstream science quite adamantly predicts. If we don't start working to solve the issue of man-made climate change today, our future generations will subequently suffer for our inaction tomorrow. And regardless of where you stand on the issue of climate change, "going green" is, simply put, good for business. Investing in green energy solutions, regardless of being an individual, a business, or a government, can save tremendous amounts of money in utility bills. Regardless of your political position, surely it can be said that saving money is never a bad thing, and if there's even chance that it might help protect the environment, what isn't to love?

The specter of global warming in and of itself generates fear. But the changes needed to stave off climate change should make sense regardless of ones political stripe. No matter how the numbers are crunched, the fact remains... Fossil fuels are a finite resource. The solution only begins with conservation on a personal level which will certainly lead to a reduction of greenhouse gasses. The problem also needs to be addressed through legislation. Although making companies comply with some sort of emission limit is a short term fix. The real solution lies with legislation to make green energy not just competitive but highly profitable. Thus allowing the problem to be addressed through capitalistic ideas.

Calvin- Great idea. My take on your topical questions is below.

There is nothing complicated or concerning regarding Global Warming other than the mixed message of the leadership of this movement. I hold Al Gore mainly responsible for the fear, our friends in the UK and their fraudulent data for the uncertainty and the vast Global Warming opposition for the doubt. How could we know what actions are truly necessary with all of this confusion? The result of the loss of credibility in the face of the potential for a gargantuan investment of global resources is a stalemate.

No one can be effective as an individual as long as the communication and understanding is so muddied by conflicting interests. Simply put, nobody trusts the data. This is why I have pressed for this effort to produce a report. We have had atmospheric scientists on this Vine offer to crunch the numbers with positive results. Faced with the unethical behavior of the climatology leadership it is time to take the effort into our own hands or the hands of scientists from other disciplines to gather and organize the data using the Scientific Method and let the people decide. Perhaps organizations like NASA or JPL could aid in this effort? I believe both organizations have some free time on their hands so why not put them to work?

Government mandates never work so why even try. Governments can spend money but they can't change our hearts and minds. If We The People are not behind this it will fail and the risk to our resources is too great to experiment. Let the people decide based on credible data. We will do the right thing. We ALL care about our planet. We just don't trust what our leadership is telling us and to me it is for very good reasons.

Dear Calvin,

this is the kind of direction I'd always hoped Newsvine would evolve toward. There are too many well-educated, thinking, and honestly concerned people on here for it to be ever just a political/ideological mosh pit. A worthy challenge for true thinkers and debaters. I do hope there will still always be a place for us Artistic types, as well.

'DeX'

I especially like the 200 word limit. A well thought out argument should be able to be presented concisely.

Global warming. As an old fart. just 60 years young, I have seen it over the years.

The winters in Saskatchewan over the last few years were like the winters in Ontario 35 years ago without the humidity. I should know because I work on roof top equipment for almost 35 years.

When I came to Canada in '57 the winters were cold and snowy. Now they are mild and wet.

Global warming is a fact and we are at the crossroads of solving this.

We have to do something to stop global warming.

Opposition and support of the existence of anthropomorphic global warming may mostly be politically motivated and introduced, but there are legitimate concerns from both sides of the "debate".

There can't be a consensus, it's impossible. If it's in question by a significant number in people, it cannot exist. It might be easy to label them all nutwings, or whatever, to support your position, but there exists rational, reasonable explanations behind the nutwingery's position.

The science is not exact. We can only look at trends and make reasonable deductions based on those trends. The only way to obtain certainty is through hindsight. We cannot predict the future.

It's stupid to be absolutely certain enough to deny the possibility of being incorrect and it's further so to act upon that arrogance. We have a disgusting track record of being wrong on nearly every prediction and assertions throughout history, it'd be foolish not to take that into consideration.

Actually, I'm wrong, there is a consensus, and it was agreed upon long ago. There are limited resources to live on, if we don't work to reduce the waste, the future of our existence becomes questionable. If we were to focus on this one thing and act upon it collectively, we would have been well on the way to resolving the real issue at hand, the government wouldn't need to intervene, and big business would cave into pressure from the consumer.

Good idea this group.

There are those who would make the claim that human caused global warming is a fact. What is a fact is that through land use changes, humans influence the overall albedo of the planet. This has been measured by multiple satellites as well as airborne instruments. What is not a fact is the contention that CO2 is the causative factor for the current warming period. CO2 based global warming is a hypothesis. This hypothesis is supported by arguments, mostly based upon statistics, not instrumental records. The difference between known warming in the past and the amount of warming claimed to be catastrophic is less than 2-3 tenths of one degree. In fact warming of similar magnitudes have been shown in the paleoclimate data of the recent past. This has been the case about every 1000-1500 years over the past 5000-7000 years.

The argument is that we must take dramatic action now, to save our world. Who's world? During the Holocene maximum of 5000-8000 years ago, while the sea level was a bit higher than today, the entire northern African continent, now the Sahara desert, was a well watered savannah. North America from the Rockies to the Mississippi was a desert. Who's status quo is the desirable one? It is absolutely inevitable that we are going to move back to an ice age within the next few thousand years. It has been happening with regularity over the past 1,000,000 years.

The argument for the most part has been that we must dial back our industrial civilization in order to stave off climate disaster. This is mostly a western liberal idea, and neither China nor India are going to go along with it, seeing it as colonialism of yet another form. A much better solution is to tackle our energy problem. Hydrocarbon energy drawn from the Earth is inherently limited. For a prosperous planetary civilization of 9 billion people which we will have in by the year 2050, we must transition to a different technology, one that provides more energy per capita than today at a lower cost than at present. This will do more to improve health, lifespans, reduce poverty, and provide jobs than all of the government wealth redistribution programs of the past 100 years.

Our civilization is inherently limited by the amount of energy we have. I propose that we move, with all dispatch that our civilization can muster, from the hydrocarbon economy to the hydrogen economy. This will involve nuclear power, both uranium and thorium fission as an interim technology, with a move to fusion as the technology matures over the next 50-100 years. Without the move to nuclear for electrical power, and hydrogen as the fuel (derived mostly from electricity), for portable power, our civilization will be inherently limited by the resources of hydrocarbons locked in the Earth.

As a side benefit, this will solve the CO2 problem if it is a problem. In focusing on CO2, we are not focusing on the root issue that confronts our civilization. Energy is the issue and just this week a new study from Yale has made this same argument that I have made here on the vine for three years.

(sorry calvin it is not possible for me to lay this out in 200 words)

You made an excellent case for Co2 as a non-anthropogenic from a Historical position as well as providing a solution in the event that Co2 is more of an impending threat than many think. Thanks for showing up, sg

It isn't that warming and cooling trends don't happen; we are debating the causes.

I see an issue with this immediately.

How is voting going to be fair?

Inevitably, no matter how good a post you make, how well written, thought out, etc. The top vote getters in any thread are the ones that post first. If we are to select debaters by vote count on the post, this is not fair to everyone.

Nicey has a good point. Moreover, there's name recognition to consider. What happened to the QOD software, Calvin? That might be really helpful in this context.

Frankly I should recuse myself in this case anyway. I just posted something at the top to get the ball rolling; in all honesty this isn't my topic. I'm working my way through a book on the subject right now and honestly it's pretty difficult stuff.

I like the QOD idea, keep the names anonymous.

Damn the climate change or global warming argument. We need an Energy policy. Stop arguing over semantics.

In 2007, we sent $700 billion dollars overseas for oil. This cannot continue. The inevitable change to renewables will take many decades to complete and it is time to get started. Yes, we can drill now but let's get started. A win win win for Americans.

1) SECURITY - renewables will increase our national security by being less dependent on others for our energy (not to mention the money we send to enemies).

2) Jobs - renewables in the US will create jobs here.

3) Pollution - renewables will drastically reduce pollution and thus address climate change

Republican Guru Frank Luntz has seen the light.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-02-03/a-global-warming-conversion/

No one knows for sure if there is climate change or not - or if it is caused by man. No one. Forget this whole subject - We need an energy policy (not written by lobbyists).

In 2007, we sent $700 billion dollars overseas for oil. One year X 10 = $7 trillion!!!

Since about 1850 innovations in obstetric hygiene and petrochemically generated food have exponentially increased human reproduction rates. A spinoff effect of this has been an exponential increase in the number of technologists. Now we have hit extraction rate limits in all our industrial feedstocks. This is called Peak-*. Peak-* means we need not concern ourselves with altering our industrial behavior because natural limits will force it to alter anyway. Peak-* will force us either to develop an entirely new technological base, or to die back as a species. Whichever way we go, our principal problem is not the regulation of carbon pollution.

Good to see Calvin once again.